Furloughed Inspectors Leave Gaps in Safety Oversight

The partial shutdown of the U.S.
government has sidelined thousands of inspectors who monitor
everything from air and water pollution to safety hazards at
factories and the condition of nursing homes.

Federal law requires agencies to retain workers whose jobs
are deemed necessary to protect life and property. Even so,
government watchdogs say the skeletal staffs may miss hazards.

“The risks are going up every day,” said Ronald White,
director of regulatory policy at the Center for Effective
Government, a Washington-based group. “These are under-the-radar kind of effects that are not clearly obvious to the person
on the street.”

The cutbacks mean safety regulators can’t do routine
inspections of high-hazard workplaces such as chemical plants,
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can’t conduct full oversight
of the nation’s nuclear power plants and the main federal
highway safety agency can’t probe a recent Tesla Motor Inc.
electric-car fire.

The shutdown enters its ninth day today as Democrats and
Republicans have been unable to resolve differences over the
federal budget and President Barack Obama’s health care
overhaul. Republicans want to defund the law, while Democrats
insist on a clean bill to fund the government.

Federal officials say they are directing resources to the
most critical functions to handle imminent health and safety
risks. Many inspectors are on the job thanks to life and
property protection exceptions in the law, according to agency
contingency plans developed for the shutdown.

OSHA Inspections

At the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which
inspects workplaces, 230 of its 2,235 workers are on the job.
The furloughs mean only enough staff to respond to complaints
with “a high risk of death or serious physical harm,”
according to OSHA’s shutdown plan.

Peg Seminario, safety and health director for the AFL-CIO,
a confederation of labor unions, said the agency’s oversight of
facilities like chemical plants is suffering in the shutdown.

There are 626 FDA investigators working and 976 furloughed,
Immergut said. The agency is focusing its efforts on monitoring
imports that pose a high risk to health, he said.

Foreign Inspections

“FDA is doing what it can under this difficult situation
to protect public health,” Immergut said. The agency won’t be
conducting about 200 food and feed domestic and foreign
inspections per week, he said in response to questions.

Tony Corbo, senior lobbyist for the food campaign at Food &
Water Watch, a non-profit consumer advocate in Washington, said
in a phone interview that food safety is “weakened by not
having the full complement of staffing” at FDA.

Anti-pollution efforts could also suffer from the shutdown
as 94 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency employees
are furloughed.

That means inspections of water treatment plants and
industrial sites are on hold, as is some work cleaning up
hazardous chemicals at Superfund areas, said Joel Mintz, a
professor of law at Southeastern University Law Center.

‘Serious’ Consequences

“Inspectors aren’t going out, and no new enforcement cases
are going forward,” Mintz said in an interview. “The longer
the shutdown goes on, the more serious the consequences will
be.”

The agency conducted approximately 20,000 inspections and
evaluations in fiscal year 2012, according to its annual report.

While Medicare and Medicaid payments are going out, because
they aren’t subject to annual appropriations, some inspections
of nursing homes aren’t being conducted.

Routine federal inspections to examine issues including
safety, clinical care and medication being administered at
nursing homes aren’t being conducted during the government
shutdown, according to a memo from the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services.

There is still oversight at nursing homes, according to
Evvie Munley, senior health policy analyst at LeadingAge, a
Washington-based advocacy group for issues related to aging.
State inspections are still being done and federal inspectors
will perform their work if they get a complaint about a
facility, she said in a phone interview.

Mine Deaths

The Mine Safety and Health Administration is focusing its
inspection efforts on mines that have a history of safety
issues. The agency retained 966 employees out of its 2,355-person workforce to protect against “imminent threats to human
life in the nation’s mines,” according to its contingency plan.

Three mine workers died in separate accidents that occurred
on three consecutive days since the shutdown.

“It is extremely troubling that within a week after the
federal government shutdown caused the normal system of mine
safety inspection and enforcement to come to a halt, three
miners are dead,” Cecil E. Roberts, the president of the United
Mine Workers of America, said in a statement. “The government’s
watchdog isn’t watching.”

Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining
Association, a Washington-based industry group whose members
include Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) in St. Louis, said that the
accidents “appear to be an anomaly” and there isn’t any
indication that they occurred because of fewer inspections.

Nuke Inspections

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has been
using carryover funding to remain open for the past week, will
have to close after Oct. 10 if the funding impasse isn’t
resolved, agency spokesman Eliot Brenner said.

The NRC, responsible for the safety of U.S. nuclear plants,
will furlough about 3,600 of its 3,900 employees, he said in an
e-mail. Those to be sent home include researchers and engineers
that license reactors and perform other duties. All resident
inspectors at reactors will remain on the job, as well those
overseeing construction of new units, according to Brenner. The
agency will also keep enough staff to respond to emergencies.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
doesn’t have the staff to investigate serious crashes or
incidents. No NHTSA team is investigating the Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)
plug-in electric car fire that sparked last week after a driver
in Washington state hit a piece of debris on the highway.

Lost Evidence

“You lose the best available evidence,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in
Washington. “If you’re investigating something, you want to
investigate the crash on the scene.”

Automakers are bound by law to submit safety recalls within
five days of learning of a vehicle defect to the NHTSA. While
that mandate doesn’t change with the government shutdown, no one
at the auto-safety regulator is there to receive, process or
post the recalls.

General Motors Co. (GM) today announced its second recall since
the shutdown began, recalling 18,972 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC
Sierra Series 1500 pickup trucks because front seat backs may
not be as safe as regulators require in the event of a rear-end
collision.

FAA Recalls

The Federal Aviation Administration recalled 800 out of
more than 3,000 airline and aircraft inspectors originally
deemed non-essential when the shutdown began Oct. 1.

The workers will monitor major airline operations and the
“most critical” production of aircraft and parts, according to
a statement from the FAA.

For the past week, no FAA inspectors have been able to
audit airline maintenance logs, search data for possible safety
trends or perform spot checks of aircraft. While the inspectors
serve as a final check, airlines are required to perform their
own safety oversight.

Kori Blalock Keller, a spokeswoman for the Professional
Aviation Safety Specialists union, said the smaller workforce
raises the possibility of disruptions in service and safety
risks.